Fortis has set up a world-class comprehensive centre for heart failure and heart transplant, at the Fortis Malar Hospital, in Chennai, India. The speciality centre under the leadership of K R Balakrishnan, director Cardiac Sciences and Suresh Rao K G, chief of Cardiac Anaesthesia and Critical Care, is ably supported by an experienced team of leading cardiac experts. It offers India’s first comprehensive Heart Failure, Heart Transplant and Artificial Heart Programme with extensive options for treatment and management of congestive heart failure.

Inaugurating the centre, Aditya Vij, chief executive officer, Fortis Healthcare Limited and chairman, Fortis Malar Hospitals Limited said, “Advances in medicine have made heart transplants safer and a real option in managing cases of end stage heart failure. Cardiac care at Fortis Malar is well established and ranked amongst the finest in the country. Our team of highly accomplished doctors led by Balakrishnan and Rao have done pioneering work in the field and have performed the largest number of successful heart transplants in the country. We are therefore pleased to institutionalise the programme by setting up a specialised Fortis Centre for Heart Failure and Transplant at the facility. I am sure the Centre will benefit many of our patients who will no longer have to seek treatment abroad for treatment of heart failure.”

K R Balakrishnan, director, Cardiac Sciences, Fortis Centre for Heart Failure and Transplant, at Fortis Malar, said, “The majority of patients who can benefit from our advanced therapy are not aware of the facilities available in India. Moreover, in Tamil Nadu alone, each year, 100-150 organ donors are available but the heart transplants carried out are around 20. Our goal is to provide the highest quality of patient-centred care to many more patients, right here in India, utilising our interdisciplinary approach, enormous talent and the multi-skilled resources within our team.”